This Call for Papers for a special issue of Genealogy about ‘Intergenerational Trauma and Healing’ might be of interest to h-madness readers.

“This Special Issue of Genealogy invites essays on the topic, “Intergenerational Trauma and Healing.” We invite contributors to examine the ways in which traumas (individual or group, and affecting humans and non-humans) that occurred in past generations reverberate into the present, and how individuals, communities, and nations respond to and address those traumas. We also invite exploration of contemporary traumas, how they reflect ancestral traumas, and how they are being addressed through drawing on both contemporary and ancestral healing approaches. We define trauma broadly, including removal from homelands, ecocide, genocide, sexual or gendered violence, institutionalized and direct racism, incarceration, and exploitation, and across a wide range of spatial (home to nation) and temporal (intergenerational/ ancestral and contemporary) scales. We also approach healing in an expansive mode, including specific individual healing practices, community-based initiatives, class-action lawsuits, group-wide reparations, health interventions, cultural approaches, and transformative legal or policy decisions. We invite scholars from across disciplines (including ethnic studies, genetics, political science, law, environmental policy, public health, humanities, etc.) to consider trauma and its ramifications alongside diverse mechanisms of healing and/or rearticulating self, community, and nation.

Some potential areas of focus may include the following, although other submissions are welcome and encouraged:

Trauma caused by the following factors, as it reverberates physically, spiritually, and emotionally through, across, between, and within generations: